Professional Diploma in Architecture
2017
Doing Architecture Differently This year-book showcases the work of students on the Professional Diploma (Prof Dip) in Architecture at the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT). Taught at CAT’s Graduate School of the Environment and validated by the University of East London, this Part II Architecture course has sustainability at its core. The projects shown here form part of the Prof Dip study programme, allowing students to practice their design skills and flex their imaginations against a real world backdrop. Illustration: Spence Gadsby
Centre for Alternative Technology Machynlleth, Powys, Wales SY20 9AZ http://gse.cat.org.uk study@cat.org.uk 01654 705950 Centre for Alternative Technology Charity Ltd Registered charity no. 265239
IT’S NOT THE ARRIVAL THAT MATTERS Patrick Hannay Editor of Touchstone The annual magazine for architecture in Wales Coming to CAT’s Prof Dip is always challenging. It’s meant to be, and all the better for that. Not for you all, the cosy option of a cosseted permanent full-time campus. Returning to a very different reality for three weeks of every month and then coming back to immerse yourselves into the odd dialectic of magnificent tranquillity and extreme intensity for a week, is a roller coaster ride, in which there are no half measures. It is a very distinctly challenging but invigorating context in which to learn from each other. You cannot just be a disinterested passenger. It has to be full on. It was. As in the lineage of many cohorts before you, something magical happens in that intense immersion. Even though I have only been in essence passing by intermittently, your commitment and enthusiasm as a cohort is already legion within the CAT annals.
Hopefully you will have infected the cohort coming up after you. Like so many before you from CAT, you will go out into many diverse parts of the profession and many of you may operate on the edge and way beyond the edge, as CAT has always wanted to be, taking others into unchartered often uncomfortable territory but always for the right long term intentions. Not for any of you the eco-wash of half-committed sustainability. You will keep, I trust, asking the awkward questions. This intensity you have experienced will always nourish you when faced with the bleakness of the apathetic, or those cowtowed by the philistines of capitalism. Leaving CAT is another matter. You will never truly leave. You are part of each other’s and this place’s memory. Don’t lose touch. You have made a fine journey that’s just beginning.
INTRODUCTION John Carter December 2016
It has been an absolute pleasure to work with the group of 20 students whose work is illustrated in this year-book. They all joined CAT’s Professional Diploma in Architecture (Prof Dip) course shortly after I took on the role of Prof Dip Joint Programme Leader, in September 2015. We have worked together, played together, laughed together and cried together; all as members of what we affectionately refer to as the ‘CAT family’. And what a family it is! It congregates at its spiritual home, CAT, for one week, every month; but it also has houses and boats and campervans scattered across the land, at which all family members are welcome. These are places of shelter, of succour, but, above all, places of warmth - in the fullest sense of this word (think Danish hygge!). It is a family for life. What you will see, writ large, in this CAT family’s work, is a commitment to an imperative - sustainable architecture; not sustainability as a ‘bolt on’
but sustainability as the very foundations of the designing and making of an architecture that will stand the tests of time and with respect for planet Earth and its ecosystems. I have seen these students grow as the weeks and months have passed. Many had joined us because they were seeking something different, be it alternatives to ‘everyday’ architectural practice; or a collaborative, rather than competitive place of learning (think non-adversarial ‘crits’!); or hands-on designing and making. They have all given as much, if not more, than they have taken and I look forward to seeing them change our world for the better. Finally, I want to add a note of heart-felt thanks to them all. I feel especially privileged to have enjoyed their company over eighteen uplifting months and will miss them more than words can convey. Soon, they will no longer be at CAT, but their voices will echo within Llwyngwern Quarry forever. The fires within you will ignite the world ..............
LIVE PROJECTS
COMMUNITY CONSULTATION IN HARLECH February 2016
‘Harlech in Transition’ was a community engagement exercise, developed by the students to learn more about the town of Harlech, in order to inform design proposals. In using this method of consultation, the values and opinions of residents and visitors to Harlech were gathered. These were then translated into a series of design proposals which responded to the data gathered.
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MATERIALS WEEK May 2016
For the annual Materials Week, we donned our biband-braces and steel-toe boots and enjoyed getting our hands (and feet) dirty. Over the week we rotated between various workshops, learning from experts in earth, straw bale and hemp-lime construction, timber framing and lime production. 1. Earth Building with Rowland Keable 2. Straw Bale Construction with Bee Rowan 3. Timber Framing with Tim Coleridge 4. Lime Workshop with Stafford Holmes 5. Hemp Lime with John Kearney
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BUILD WEEK Glastonbury Pavilion June / July 2016 During the summer build week a team of seven students set out to construct a portion of a prototype self-build house. This portal frame with straw bale in-fill house was designed by tutor Ed Green, developing upon the ideas of Walter Segal but to modern standards. Once complete the structure was dismantled and packed into a van and began its road trip south, to Worthy Farm. Once at Glastonbury a small team of four had only 48 hours to assemble the pavilion before the festival began. With many a bemused glance from the other stall holders in the Green Futures Field the timber frame came together and stood out amongst the city of canvas. The pavilion became a real feature in the Green Futures Field, prominently positioned between Toad Hall and the Speakers Forum. Passers-by popped in to find out more about CAT, the Professional Diploma course, the pavilion itself and just to shelter from the all too frequent showers. The key lessons taken from the whole experience were the importance of a raised floor, as well as the incredible soaring value of straw bales, used to soak up mud in what was one of the wettest Glastonbury festivals on record.
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BUILD WEEK Floating Pavilion - A Contemplation Place June / July 2016 Concept designer: Phoebe Stock Design and Build Team: Lewis Shaw, Spence Gatsby, Marc Woods, Josephine Elnaugh, Eliana Stenning, Harry Avis Carpenters: Axi Butterworth, with help from Josh Coldwell and Toby Slapp Flooding is becoming increasing prevalent in the UK. With predicted sea level rises and an increase in rainfall, living with water could become the norm. Could floating be the future? A raft hopes to reflect the tranquillity of the CAT reservoir whilst providing a platform from which to contemplate. The trapezoid raft frame offers stability and stops the frame from twisting whilst complementing the ‘hyperbolic paraboloid’ canopy above, both visually and structurally. A lightweight canopy sits on top of the raft deck, suggesting shelter. The form intends to reflect a sail, the hills in the background or perhaps a swallow sweeping down for water. Being moored onto a pontoon allows the raft to alternatively be enjoyed as a water’s edge pavilion. The construction process has offered an invaluable learning experience, especially around the resolution of timber joins and calculating buoyancy.
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BUILD WEEK Thatch Pavilion
Concept designer: Eve Williams Design and Build Team: Gwyn Stacey, James Kirkman, David Hall, Jamie Keats, Miguel Fernandez, Lilian Tuohy Main and many others! Master Thatchers: Alan Jones and Dafydd Driver Our thatch pavilion derived from a woodland studio idea and features on CAT’s new Quarry Trail. As a potential by-product of wheat, the sustainable nature of thatch stood out as an exciting cladding material for the future, which could be produced on a local scale and composted at the end of its life. The sourcing of straw was a key learning factor of this project, as thatching straw varieties are increasingly hard to come by in recent years. We were able to source a traditional variety from the 1860s, organic Square Head Master, albeit from further across the country than we’d hoped.
Having been taken through the stages of long straw thatching in a specialised workshop by Master Thatcher Alan Jones, our team of students soon found our rhythm with processing the straw and fixing it onto prefabricated timber panels. The nature of the cladding system, being prefabricated, meant that we coordinated tasks between three workstations distributed across the CAT site. While the timber frame was going up on the build site (with the assistance of carpenters Josh and Toby), the timber backing panels were being built in the barn and a team were continuously preparing straw and thatching the panels. We certainly found it was a steep learning curve, but the ability to construct the details we had drawn up in the studio gave us a new understanding of both the way the materials worked and the time involved in construction. First-hand understanding of materiality and build-ability is too often missing from architectural education. It is the understanding gained through projects such as this which grounds this course in reality.
2017
KITTEN PROJECTS [5th Year Prof Dip Projects]
ADELINA BRAN adelina.a.bran@gmail.com
People’s Centre for Cultural Exchange ‘‘…ethnographic insights are crucial. They can contribute to a closer understanding of difference, but also lift out similarities between people and enhance appreciation of the human concerns shared beyond any kind of borders.’’ (Frykman and Maja, 2010) Adelina is proposing a hub that will embody the key principles of inclusion and equality for immigrants, to celebrate the diversity of British communities and to help every person be included in society on economic, social, political and cultural levels. This proposal is making use of an overlooked urban site in central Ipswich to provide core services enabling integration, along with facilitates to encourage the individual to engage with the local community, participate in culturally specific celebrations and in turn learn more about the roots and similarities that unify people beyond ethnic groups.
DAN SHURROCK dan.shurrock@hotmail.co.uk
An Education Meditation & Community Food Growing Centre Dan’s final project proposes to provide an Educational Meditation and Community Food Growing Centre for the village of Eccleston, Lancashire and the North West at large. The county of Lancashire proportionally has the highest number of mental health referrals to the NHS in the country, and Eccleston was once the fruit producer of the North, with over 40+ orchards, none of which now exist. Upon the 28-acre site the renovation of existing derelict farm buildings and replanting of an orchard will bring a cultural, historical and physical connection to the area. A sense of privacy, silence and interconnectedness with the land will be achieved through natural materials, courtyard forms, cloisters and a connection to water.
DAVID HALL davidhall261@googlemail.com
A Resolution for Resomation The process of resomation is an alternative to the traditional flame based cremation. It involves a high pressure vessel of a steam and alkaline solution accelerating the decomposition of the deceased, resulting in a white bone ash which can then be returned to the family. The process has numerous benefits including a 75% reduction of carbon emissions compared to flame based cremation, and the mercury from dental amalgam is contained and recycled, not vaporised. In addition, because the process does not release fumes into the air, the crematorium can be placed within the urban setting, further reducing the carbon footprint involved due to more accessibility to the facility. This possibility of crematoria in the centre of a town raises many architectural challenges, such as: Where and how should the public and mourners interact? What should the typology of a resomation facility be? How do you create an area of peaceful reflection within a lively secular setting?
ELIANA STENNING elianastenning@hotmail.co.uk
Stairway to Heaven A place for contemplation along the new woodland walk in the old slate quarry at CAT, to be buildable in one week by CAT architecture students. The stairway is rooted to an existing solid plinth originally used to anchor a crane that lifted slate from the quarry. It extends off the edge of the plinth and projects the explorer to a unique and personal place, accompanying and amplifying the drama of the wild and rugged landscape.
EMILY ARBER emilyarber@googlemail.com
The High Street Hospice This urban design project aims to challenge the conventional expectation of the hospice. Traditionally they have been located on the edges of towns, set back from society with limited scope for the public to engage with such facilities. This is due to the inability of modern day society to deal with death and its relevance to everyday life. By reintroducing the hospice into the heart of the town, there is scope for attitudes towards dealing with death and the terminally ill to change. The hospice itself benefits from the strong life force of people as an emphasis on ‘living up until dying’ aims to create a normal setting and atmosphere, not just for the people using the facility but for friends and family experiencing the journey too. The holistic and spiritual qualities of the hospice as a place of contemplation, ceremony and clarity are made more profound by the engagement of the general public. The relationship between high street and hospice means that each can mutually boost the other for the overall betterment of the area.
EVE WILLIAMS evelyne.williams@hotmail.co.uk
The Sugar Sheds A community of people coming together co-operatively to foster a sense of belonging, to learn, to work, to be creative, and to empower individuals. This project discusses the idea of whether architecture can play a role in protecting intangible cultural heritage, here in Great Britain, as a tool to promote wellbeing in more deprived communities. Britain has a deep-rooted nautical history that weaves its way into a surprising extent of our culture, but this history was once far more prolific, with a wealth of skills that went with it. The project therefore proposes that the listed ‘Sugar Sheds’ of Greenock be a catalyst for community change through the revival of traditional timber boat building skills on a smaller scale than the Clyde’s shipbuilding heritage, whilst paying homage to the steel industry of the past.
GWYN STACEY gwyn.t.stacey@hotmail.co.uk
Bardsey Island Human Ecological Reformatory Reformatories will sit within a radically reformed penal justice system. A utilitarian reformatory is not a place where people pay for their crimes, but centres where there are means to give the residents a chance to reform. An environment that is fit for the human mind, body and soul. Bardsey Island Human Ecological Reformatory will provide a location where residents can become custodians for their environment as well as utilising its resources to live self-sufficiently. The scheme proposes three locations for the residents to live, work and engage with the wider community. The main building where residents will live will be situated at Bardsey Island Lighthouse where there will be a combination of new build and refurbishment of the existing cottages.
HARRY AVIS harryavis@googlemail.com
Bristol’s Growing Community There is a growing debate in Europe over the reception of asylum seekers. Despite the ethical and legal obligation of states to keep their borders open, the reception of asylum seekers has been a volatile issue. Owing much to this are current protocols used to process asylum seekers and a polarised media trail around the issue. Architecturally, the issue is confused and does not help; using prison-like buildings to house asylum seeker detainees for example or concentrating large numbers of asylum seekers in hard-to-let properties. Bristol’s Growing Community is an open reception centre for asylum seekers and refuges that offers a welcome embrace for new arrivals and builds resilient networks between its inhabitants and the existing local community. A waste site and waste materials are re-purposed to provide shelter, with facilities for growing providing a point of distraction and a place to connect over nature.
JACK BURR jack@kwalita.co.uk
Sawya Quay - Liberating the cancer patient from the hospital Rewriting the experience of dealing with the disease from one of fear, isolation, and loneliness to one of support, care and comfort. One in two people born after 1960 in the UK will be diagnosed with some form of cancer during their lifetime (Cancer Research UK, 2016). The statistics are shocking - cancer is now the norm. The science is clear - people respond to their environment, an artificially-lit concrete jungle (the modern hospital) is not the environment to inspire health and wellbeing. On a site of 1.2 hectares the Sawya Quay Project will holistically address the treatment of / rehabilitation from cancer. Christopher Alexander would describe it as a ‘health centre’. A proposal that brings together activities, notions and pastimes that evoke the essence of wellbeing. A centre that emphasises health not sickness.
JAMES KIRKMAN kirkman.j@gmail.com
Abbey Glen Dementia Care Community Architecture, healthcare and wellbeing are intrinsically linked. Living with dementia places an absolute reliance on your local environment, drastically affecting quality of life and the progression of the condition. This project explores the latest theory in design for dementia, a thesis on the transition into the care environment and the social connections in the care environment, a care community in the city of Sheffield.
JAMIE KEATS jkeats14@gmail.com
Transitional Living Since 2007 homelessness in London has doubled. The pressures from the cost of housing and cuts within the care sector have forced many people out of homes. The definition of homelessness is changing as the issue crosses into the mainstream – no longer an issue affecting only those on the fringes of society. This project explores how architecture can serve society’s most vulnerable through providing a new type of ‘basic shelter’. The project aims to bring ‘homeless’ into the heart of our communities, putting accommodation at the centre of a mixed use development helping integration as well and mitigating the public stigma towards the homeless.
JOSEPHINE ELNAUGH josephineelnaugh@gmail.com
Water Wharf: Leisure Ecology Arts “There are only two building types, all buildings being variants of one or the other. The pavilion, open, extrovert, fashionable, and the castle, closed, secretive, timeless.” - James Gowan Leisure Ecology Arts (LEA) is a proposed organisation to host two cultural ecological projects aiming to reconnect the Lower Lea, an underexposed waterway, and to resolve an urban vs ecology dichotomy. LEA’s Water Wharf project is a castle. Inside it displays Lea water, extracted from Lea cut canal, processed and used. And LEA culture hosted in wings: A Leisure Wing, arrived to by the Lea and leading to a water cycle spa; an Ecology Wing opening up Lea ecology, digital research, testing labs and volunteer accommodation and an Arts Wing, displaying Lea art, graffiti and framed ecology. Water Wharf aims to connect an urban population to the Lower Lea, through appreciation of water, ecology and culture.
JONATHAN GOZDAWA jonathan.g@live.co.uk
Chatham Street Community Learning Centre For the final project Jonathan has designed a community learning centre situated on Chatham Street, Walworth London. The design proposal is a response to the lack of free communal spaces close to the site, as well as the level of social and financial deprivation in this particular area of London. The aim of the project is to provide a community run facility which offers a wide range of activities and workshops which fulfil the mind and body. Some of these activities include language exchange, CV clinics, ICT workshops, children’s books clubs, yoga, dance, climbing and many more.
LEWIS SHAW shawrl92@hotmail.co.uk
Project - The Centre for Ocean Protection Location - Royal Pier, Aberystwyth (Grade II Listed) Lewis’s project is re-inventing Aberystwyth pier, developing it into a centre for marine conservation, promoting research, education, conservation and charity for the Cardigan Bay Marine Wildlife Centre. Putting marine conservation in a prominent sea side location and celebrating it as an important cause for global sustainability. The project includes a new harbour and breakwater alongside the existing Victorian Pier which will be home to a sustainable fishing port and university facility. The existing pier has been restored to its Victorian glory and is home to a new sustainable fish restaurant and marine exhibition. The two elements are linked by a lift which elevates users to dramatic views of Cardigan Bay.
LILIAN TUOHY MAIN lilian.main@gmail.com
Space to Make “The past is not dead, it is living in us, and will be alive in the future which we are now helping to MAKE.” - William Morris Barns and agricultural buildings are a defining part of the rural landscape of the United Kingdom. Many are traditional buildings, increasingly in a poor or decaying condition. Lilian’s final design project aims to reverse this cycle of decay by presenting a ‘kit’ of strategies for dealing with existing agricultural buildings. In creating spaces to train and equip people with the skills to repair and maintain historic buildings, it celebrates their heritage value, whilst also establishing them as important economic and social assets for rural communities once more.
SPACE TO MAKE Juxtaposed (Barwickstead)
PUBLIC GALLERY
Eroded /Knitted (Midtown Barn) WORKSHOPS
Inserted (Bragg’s Barn)
ACCOMMODATION
MARC WOODS architecturemw@gmail.com
Regenerating a Generating Station This project proposes a new use for an abandoned electricity generating station in the historic port of Dublin. The Pigeon House Generating Station is thoughtfully adapted into a Museum of Energy & City Developments, supplemented by an Algae Research Laboratory for future energies. The museum will provide travellers with a place to reflect on the city’s rich history and past achievements, hold up a mirror to its current successes and short-comings and take note of the city’s ambitions for the future. In this way the Pigeon House aims to provide a platform for an accountable and a progressive municipality.
MATT CHRISTOPHER REDDING mattcredding@gmail.com
“Pollution is nothing but the resources we are not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we’ve been ignorant of their value” - R. Buckminster Fuller, 1971 Longfield House is an existing 1960s office block, with renovations dating back to the 1980s, and has been left derelict for the past 15 years. Matt’s passion of cradle to cradle and finding solutions in which to teach and exhibit these systems has strongly influenced his final project. For his final design, he looks at ways in which the building and the 5 acre office park can be radically changed to bring a cradle to cradle perspective to a urban landscape. The use of and reuse of the building, from external cladding to the internal building users, has been carefully examined in order to provide an example for how one might look differently at refurbishment of wasteful architecture into a new product. This cylindrical cradle to cradle project looks at taking all waste products and exemplifying them into a product on an existing building.
MIGUEL FERNANDEZ miguelfernandez@live.co.uk
Growing Argosocial Places This project asks how we might re-engage our generation with the processes and production of their food, connecting our lives back to the magic and science of agroecology, finding pleasure in the changing seasons and shifting weather patterns and the beauty of soil and sunlight. To inspire a new generation of farmers. To achieve this the proposal looks to create a new ‘Garden Village’ on the site of an abandoned hilltop farm on the edge of Truro. At the heart of the new settlement lies an Agroecology Community College and School of Gastronomy surrounded by co-housing initiatives and social farming enterprises.
PHOEBE STOCK phoebestock@googlemail.com
Pomona Island The UK prison system is failing, as can be seen from shocking statistics and statements revealing high reoffending rates linked to mental health issues, addiction, lack of education, isolation and dehumanisation. Phoebe is proposing a prison ‘alternative’, rehumanising the system, focusing on rehabilitation and community reintegration. It aims to offer hope and opportunity for change and growth and to support a successful transition back into the community. It is designed around the therapeutic and healing qualities of natural light, green space, water and horticulture, in order to create a rehabilitative environment. Reintegration is encouraged through the provision of opportunity, encouraging independence and the breaking down of the physical and social boundaries between ‘prison’ and the community in which it lies.
SPENCE GADSBY spence_gadsby@hotmail.com
Bristol Upcycling and Sustainability Hub Conscious construction with mindful materials Bristol is a very forward thinking city; in 2015 it was named the ‘European Green Capital’ and is full of enthusiasm and excitement towards a greener way of living. The proposed site for BUSH is a large brownfield site in the St Paul’s area that is well connected to the city centre and surrounded by a strong community.
To the Professional Diploma Tutoring Team THANK YOU
TRISH ANDREWS
DAVID LEA + PAT BORER + ED GREEN
JOHN CARTER
PAOLA SASSI
Adam Tyler Alan Jones Alison Pooley Annie O’brien Arthur Butler Axi Butterworth Bee Rowan Cany Ash Carwyn Jones Ceri Davies Chris Loyn Dafydd Driver Daisy Froud Dave Edwards Deiter Brandslatter Ed Green Elen Bowman Frances Hill Geoff Stowe
Glenn Howells Greg Jones Hugo Keene Jam Stark James Spencer James Todd Jan Evans Jane Fisher Jessica Read Jocelyn Urvoy John Christophers John Kearney Jono Hines Josh Coldwell Juan Carlos Fornino Kay Hyde Kerriann Falconer Kim Bryan Kristian Hyde Laura Mark Louise Halestrap Matt Rimmer Mikhael Sverdlov Nanda Lima Niall Maxwell
Thanks also to those who pledged to help finish the Thatch Pavilion:
Alan Jones Dafydd Driver John Carter Laura Kirkman Trish Andrews Colin Kirkman Andrew Stock Alex Jelly Kit Jones Neil McCormick Emily Watkin
Thanks also go out to:
Nick Cramp Patrick Hannay Paul Allen Paul Harris Phil Broughton Rachael Mead Richard Heath Robbie Bowman Rowland Keable Ruth Stevenson Scott Sanders Siobhan Holt Sophia MorganSwinhoe Stafford Holmes Tim Coleridge Toby Slapp Tom Barker Wain McNeilly Zoe Quick
Ross Freeman Gavin D J Harper Lauren Strand Dai Stacey Adelina Bran Greta Hughson And to all those who volunteered their time!
The sawing is over, the hard work is done, you all came together to build a dream of the one. How magnificent is your creation, how wonderful the result, you’ve all done so well you know, some of you even missed lunch. Your evenings have changed now and so will your days, as you drift around the CAT lake, drifting off into a daze And when the time comes to return to your chores do not despair if you cannot reach the shore. Cast off all your worries, your clothes and your boots and dive into the water ... you’re one hell of a crew! Hip-hip, hooray Hip-hip, hooray Hip-hip, hooray KERRIANN FALCONER a.k.a Ippy (the perfectly proportioned hippy)